The heddles in weaving machines have the purpose of lifting and lowering the warp threads which are guided through a thread guide in order to form the weaving shed. The heddle must thereby in its longitudinal expansion direction only produce a small force of some grams. The known heddles of today consist of metal. Prior to the time when heddles were made of metal, same consisted of threads and ropes having thread guides attached to or tied therein. The friction between such heddles and the warp threads was unfavorable, and the heddles had to be manufactured manually with much work and had to be tied into the heddle frame.
When the rotational speeds increased in modern weaving machines, it has been proven that the shed-forming machine must, aside from the force for moving the warp threads from the lower shed to the upper shed and vice versa, apply at times a still greater force in order to accelerate and to delay the mass of the heddles which are secured on a heddle bar. Since such forces increase in the square with respect to the rotational speed increase, it became necessary to reinforce spring draw registers and shed-forming machines. This results in turn in heavy moved parts. The mass accelerative forces thus increase until an increase of the rotational speed no longer brings about any economical advantage. Also the situation occurs that the heddles are prematurely destroyed due to the accelerative forces which act onto said heddles.
The purpose now is to achieve a weight reduction in heddles and frames, which permits a further increase in the operating speed of weaving machines.
This is attained by weaving heddles for weaving machines which are secured at least on one side to a heddle frame bar movable by a shed-forming machine or dobby and which have a thread guide thereon for warp threads and on the other side are held in approximately parallel direction with respect to one another and perpendicularly with respect to the warp threads. The heddles are characterized inventively by two and more weaving heddles consisting of one single cord of a flexible, practically nonelastic, nonmetallic material, which is looped over and around known end-securing bars on the individual heddles directly or by interpositioning an elastic band.
The use of a nonmetallic cord for the manufacture of heddles, for example rigid plastic, results in a noticeable reduction of the entire weight of the heddles. The plastic can be die-cast or extruded.